Download Aquatic Invasions – the new European journal of applied research

Aquatic Invasions (2006) 1: 1-3
© 2006 European Research Network on Aquatic Invasive Species
Editorial
Aquatic Invasions – the new European journal of applied research
on biological invasions in aquatic ecosystems
Vadim E. Panov 1 and Stephan Gollasch 2
1
2
Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia, E-mail: [email protected]
GoConsult, Hamburg, Germany, E-mail: [email protected]
Aquatic Invasions* is a new on-line journal focusing on biological invasions of the inland and
coastal waters of geographic Europe. The journal
will form an important tool for the rapid exchange of information pertaining to aquatic
invasive** species, providing an opportunity for
timely publication of first records of biological
invaders and hence prompting risk assessment,
early warning and eradication programmes. The
journal will also provide an opportunity to publish relevant technical reports and other accounts
not publishable in regular scientific journals, including large datasets of aquatic invasive species
records from monitoring and biological surveys.
Submission of these datasets in standard tabular
format will allow publication of primary georeferenced data as annexes to regular articles or
short communications. Linked to the available
open databases and on-line GIS applications on
aquatic invasive species via the Regional Biological Invasions Center information system
(RBIC, http://www.zin.ru/rbic/), Aquatic Invasions will serve as an essential component of the
developing European early warning system on
invasive species.
Increased shipping activities, construction of
canals and other human activities resulted in
massive invasions of alien species into European
inland and coastal waters during the last century.
As a result significant changes in marine, estuarine and inland waters’ biodiversity as well as
severe economic impacts occurred (Galil 2000;
Zaitsev and Öztürk 2001; Leppäkoski et al. 2002
a, b). Due to the serious challenges posed by
invasions of aquatic alien species to Europe,
during the last decades European scientists were
actively involved in relevant international networking initiatives resulting in several international and regional working groups and the
recent establishment of the European Research
Network on Aquatic Invasive Species (ERNAIS,
http://www.zin.ru/rbic/projects/ernais/) (Panov et
al. 2002; Panov 2005).
The concept of ERNAIS was discussed for the
first time in 1999 at the 16th Baltic Marine
Biologist (BMB) Meeting in Klaipeda, Lithuania. In 2001, the International Association of
Theoretical and Applied Limnology (SIL)
Working Group on Aquatic Invasive Species
(WGAIS) and BMB Working Group on Nonindigenous Estuarine and Marine Organisms
(WG NEMO) initiated a broad discussion on
ERNAIS and a call for cooperation was sent to
known European experts.
* the concept of the ERNAIS e-journal Aquatic Invasions has been first presented at the International Workshop on
Biological Invasions in Inland Waters, Florence, Italy, 5-7 May 2005 in an oral presentation by V. Panov and
S. Gollasch “European Research Network on Aquatic Invasive Species (ERNAIS): past, present and future”
(http://www.dbag.unifi.it/inwat/ )
** the editorial policy of Aquatic Invasions is to consider internationally agreed terminology in the area of biological
invasions, currently developing in frameworks of the Convention on Biological Diversity (see Decisions
adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its sixth meeting, the Hague,
7-19 April 2002) and other international legal instruments, such as the Ballast Water Management Convention of the
International Maritime Organization and the ICES Code of Practice on the Introductions and Transfers of
Marine Organisms.
1
V. Panov and S. Gollasch, Aquatic Invasions
As a result, a first online directory of European experts in the area of aquatic invasions was
developed, which included approx. 50 experts in
2001, 85 experts in 2002 and 105 scientists and
managers from 27 countries by the end of 2005.
In 2002 ERNAIS was first recognized by
European Commission in the Thematic Report on
Alien Invasive Species to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (http://biodiversity-chm.eea.
eu.int/convention/cbd_ec/).
In December 2003, the role of ERNAIS in the
development of the European Information Network on Invasive Species has been recognized in
the European Strategy on Invasive Alien Species
(Genovesi and Shine 2004). Finally, in 2005
ERNAIS became supported for the first time by
the European Commission Sixth Framework
Programme for Research and Technological Development through the Integrated Project ALARM
(Settele et al. 2005).
The key objectives of ERNAIS currently
include: (a) the facilitation of international
research cooperation, scientific information exchange and management of aquatic invasive
species in Europe and worldwide (ERNAIS Experts Database, http://www.zin.ru/rbic/projects/
ernais/searchform.asp); (b) the development of
an on-line information system on aquatic invasive species for European coastal and inland
waters with early warning functions (AquaInvader Database, http://www.zin.ru/rbic/ projects/
aquainvader/ ); (c) the establishment of an online
journal, focusing on applied issues of aquatic
invasions in geographic Europe, (Aquatic
Invasions, http://www.zin.ru/rbic/projects/ernais/
ernais_journal.asp); and (d) participation in the
Global Invasive Species Information Network
(GISIN, http://www. gisinetwork.org/).
We see the future of ERNAIS as a European
framework for on-line scientific information exchange, relevant to aquatic invasive species, and
also as provider of essential information and
expertise needed for management of aquatic
invasive species at the European level.
Figure 1. Conceptual model of the European early warning system on aquatic invasive species and the role of the e-journal
Aquatic Invasions (ALARM – EC FP6 Integrated Project “Assessing LArge scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with
tested Methods” at http://www.alarmproject.net , DAISIE - EC FP6 Strategic Targeted Research Project “Delivering Alien
Invasive Species Inventories for Europe” at http://www.europe-aliens.org, ERMS – European Registry of Marine Species at
http://www.marbef.org/data/erms.php , RBIC – Regional Biological Invasions Center information system at http://www.zin.ru/
rbic/ , ERNAIS – European Research Network on Aquatic Invasive Species at http://www.zin.ru/rbic/projects/ernais/ , ICES –
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea at http://www.ices.dk , NOBANIS – North European and Baltic Network on
Invasive Alien Species at http://www2.skovognatur.dk/nobanis/ ; CIESM – Atlas of Exotic Species of the International
Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea at http://www.ciesm.org/online/atlas/ ; OSPAR - OSPAR
Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic at http://www.ospar.org/ ; HELCOM
information resources – Baltic Sea Alien Species Database at http://www.ku.lt/nemo/mainnemo.html and GIS “Invasive Species
of the Baltic Sea” at http://www.zin.ru/rbic/projects/invader/ ).
2
V. Panov and S. Gollasch, Aquatic Invasions
Currently ERNAIS experts are actively working
on the development of on-line information resources on aquatic invasive species, urgently needed for
elaboration of relevant management measures on
the European and subregional levels (Gollasch
2002; Olenin et al. 2002; Panov and Gollasch 2004;
Panov 2004). The future development of these
resources should consider their integration in the
developing global network of online interoperable databases and information systems via
development of the interlinked regional information hubs (Panov and Gollasch 2004). These
regional information hubs will provide comprehensive information on aquatic alien species, including regional alien species directories with
species-specific entries. Timely access to the
geo-referenced monitoring data, using existing
Internet and GIS technologies, will support the
regional information hubs as early warning systems (Panov and Shestakov 2004), and the
ERNAIS e-journal Aquatic Invasions will form
an essential part of this process, specifically in
protecting the authors rights on these primary
data (Figure 1).
Aquatic Invasions is published by ERNAIS
on behalf of the International Association of
Theoretical and Applied Limnology (SIL) and is
also supported by the ICES/IOC/IMO Working
Group on Ballast and Other Ship Vectors
(WGBOSV). The European Commission Sixth
Framework Programme Integrated Project
ALARM (GOCE-CT-2003-506675) provided startup support for the Aquatic Invasions e-journal
and the Strategic Targeted Research Project
DAISIE (SSPI-CT-2003-511202) provided general networking support.
References
Galil BS (2000) A sea under siege – alien species in the Mediterranean. Biological Invasions 2: 177-186
Genovesi P and Shine C (2004) European strategy on invasive
alien species. Nature and Environment 137. Council of Europe: Strasbourg, France 67 pp
Gollasch S (2002) Databases on aquatic alien species: North
and Mediterranean Seas and non-European Initiatives. In:
Leppäkoski E, Gollasch S and Olenin S (eds) Invasive
Aquatic Species of Europe. Distribution, Impacts and Management, pp 520-524. Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht
Leppäkoski E, Gollasch S, Gruszka P, Ojaveer H, Olenin S and
Panov V (2002a) The Baltic - a sea of invaders. Canadian
Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 59: 1175-1188
Leppäkoski E, Gollasch S and Olenin S (eds) (2002b) Invasive
Aquatic Species of Europe. Distribution, Impacts and Management. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 583 pp
Olenin S, Leppäkoski E and Daunys D (2002) Internet database on alien species in the Baltic Sea. In: Leppäkoski E,
Gollasch S and Olenin S (eds) Invasive Aquatic Species of
Europe. Distribution, Impacts and Management, pp 525528. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Panov V (2004) Internet-based information resources on
aquatic alien species relevant to the Ponto-Caspian Region. In: Dumont HJ, Shiganova TA and Niermann U (eds)
Aquatic Invasions in the Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean Seas, pp 257-269. Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht
Panov V (2005) SIL Working Group on Aquatic Invasive
Species: history and present activities. SILNews 46: 5
Panov V, Gollasch S, Leppäkoski E and Olenin S (2002)
International cooperation in aquatic invasive species research, information exchange and management in Europe.
Aquatic Invaders 13 (4): 1-5
Panov V and Gollasch S (2004) Informational resources on
aquatic alien species in Europe on the internet: present
developments and future perspectives. In: Vanden
Berghe E., Brown M, Costello MJ, Heip C, Levitus S and
Pissierssens P (eds). Proceedings of “The Colour of Ocean
Data” Symposium, pp 115-124. IOC Workshop Report
188, UNESCO, Paris
Panov V and Shestakov V (2004) Towards an information
system on aquatic invasive species with early warning functions for European coastal waters. In: Ocean Biodiversity
Informatics, book of abstracts, pp 91. Hamburg, Germany
Settele J, Hammen V, Hulme P, Karlson U, Klotz S, Kotarac M,
Kunin W, Marion G, O’Connor M, Petanidou T, Peterson K,
Potts S, Pritchard H, Pysek P, Rounsevell M, Spangenberg J,
Steffan-Dewenter I, Sykes M, Vighi M, Zobel M, Kuhn I
(2005): ALARM – Assessing LArge-scale environ
mental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods. GAIA
14/1: 69-72
Zaitsev Yu and Öztürk B (eds) (2001) Exotic species in the
Aegean, Marmara, Black, Azov and Caspian Seas. Published by Turkish Marine Research Foundation, Istanbul,
Turkey, 267 pp
3